The carriage wheels sank into the sodden track with a wet sucking sound, the axles groaning against peat and tangled root systems. Daina pressed her face closer to the window, though the view offered little comfort. A perpetual twilight clung to the ancient trees, their branches skeletal fingers reaching through a fog so thick it tasted of loam and decaying leaves. The cold smelled of rotted sedge and iron-slick mud. Her fingers, calloused from brass drafting dividers, twitched against her woolen skirt. A sudden crack splintered the glass beside her temple. A gnarled, moss-covered branch, unseen in the shifting mist, had lashed out, leaving a spiderweb of fissures over her reflection. Her own face splintered across the pane, doubled and distorted in the grey light. Finally, the mist thinned just enough to reveal the estate. A hulking silhouette of dark fieldstone and peaked slate gables appeared less built upon the bedrock than slowly sinking through it. Lichen caked the lower masonry, and the western chimney leaned at a noticeable cant toward the mire. No footmen waited, no torches blazed a path. The carriage shuddered to a halt, the horses snorting with unease. A single figure emerged from the drifting grey: a stooped man with salt-bitten skin scored deep around the temples. He wore roughspun clothes the colour of marsh earth, and his hands, when he opened the carriage door, were thick with calluses. This was Hedeon, the estate’s groundskeeper, as Daina had been informed by a curt letter weeks prior. “Welcome, Lady Vaskaitis,” Hedeon’s voice was a low rasp, like dry reeds rubbing together. His pale eyes fixed on her boots, then flicked to the surveying ledger tucked under her elbow. “The master awaits no one.” He offered no further explanation, merely gestured for her to disembark. The turf gave way beneath her thin-soled boots with a faint hiss of rising water. The air here was colder, heavier, laden with the scent of stagnant water and something metallic, like old blood. Her luggage, a single trunk packed with maps, charts, and surveying instruments, was deposited with surprising efficiency by the old man. As she stood on the crumbling flagstones, Hedeon extended a gnarled hand. In it lay a folded piece of parchment, creased and worn. “A few guidelines for your… stay,” he said, his voice dropping to an almost inaudible murmur. “The Murmurwood has its own ways.” Daina unfolded the scrap. The strokes were jagged, penned with dark, uneven ink. Her eyes scanned the first entry: *Rule #1: Never leave a candle burning after midnight.* She looked up, a logical question forming on her lips, but Hedeon had already turned, vanishing back into the fog as silently as he had appeared. Superstition, then. Her new home was steeped in it. Inside, the manor was a cavern of echoes and shadows. Her chamber, though spacious, felt damp and airless, the heavy velvet drapes clinging to the windows. A wide oak desk stood beneath the high casement, its wax finish ringed by dry-rot and candle grease. Later that evening, after a solitary meal served by a silent maid, Daina sat at the desk. The fog had pressed against the window panes, erasing the world outside. She spread out her blank parchment, her charcoal sticks and rulers laid ready. A single candelabrum, holding three beeswax candles, cast a warm, if limited, glow. The hour was late, nearing eleven bells. She had just begun sketching the rough outline of the manor from memory, triangulating potential angles based on the approach, when the door creaked open. Her head snapped up. Standing in the doorway was a man who seemed carved from the same dark stone as the manor itself. Lord Stellan Voronin. His frame was imposing, broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. His hair, the colour of a raven’s wing, fell across a brow furrowed with what looked like perpetual displeasure. A thick ridge of scar tissue dragged his left cheek downward toward a broken collarbone. His grey eyes fixed on her without wavering. But it was not recognition, or even curiosity, that she saw there. It was dismissal. “My apologies, my lord,” Daina began, rising from the chair. “I had not expected—” “There is no need,” Stellan’s voice was a low rumble, devoid of inflection. He did not step fully into the room, merely occupied the threshold. “Your presence here is a formality. Nothing more. Do not trouble yourself with me, Lady Vaskaitis. And I, you.” He offered no hand, no further word, no lingering glance. With that chilling pronouncement, he turned and was gone, the heavy oak door closing with a soft thud that resonated through the quiet room. Daina stood, a hot flush creeping up her neck. Heat flared along her throat, settled, and dried into resolve. He might dismiss her, but she would map every inch of this blighted estate, every hidden passage, every secret, until she found a way out, or a way to understand. The candles burned steadily. Midnight chimed from a distant tower, the sound swallowed by the oppressive fog. Rule #1. *Superstition,* she scoffed internally. She needed light to work, to plan, to survive. Her quill scratched across the parchment, detailing the estate's sprawling west wing, as the shadows danced around her. The air grew colder. A sudden, violent gust of wind, impossible given the sealed windows, slammed her shutters against the exterior wall with a resounding crack. The candelabrum wobbled, and then, with an impossible puff, all three flames extinguished, plunging the room into absolute, suffocating darkness. From the walls themselves, from the very air, came a chorus of whispers, indistinct and ancient, yet undeniably close, pressing in.

The First Rule